Salem-News.com Palestine articles Page 39

Farewell to Helen Thomas

I met Thomas last year in Washington DC, she attended an event with Norton Mezvinsky and myself that was organised by The Washington Report.

(LONDON) - Helen Thomas, one of the last truth tellers, died last Saturday. Thomas was the longest serving White House correspondent, she grilled 10 USA presidents in an astonishing career that started in 1943. She was 92.

The heroic lady survived 10 American presidents but was cornered by a single Rabbi who videotaped her suggesting that Israelis should "get out of Palestine" and "go home" to Poland, Germany and America.

Indyk Returns as Kerry`s Chief Negotiator

Indyk began his Washington career as an AIPAC staffer, and served two short terms as the first foreign-born U.S. Ambassador to Israel.

(CHICAGO) - Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to name Martin Indyk as the U.S. Representative to the Israel-Palestinian peace negotiation. Indyk has been around this peace talk track before.

He belongs to a small group of Jewish diplomats who have specialized in Middle East negotiations. The same names come up with every new effort to reconcile Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

`Whoever Speaks of 1967 Borders Speaks of Auschwitz`: Israel`s Cabinet not Serious about Negotiations for a Palestinian State

Palestinians had been reluctant to give predatory Israeli policy toward them any legitimacy by negotiating at a time when Israelis were actively pouring more Israeli settlers into the Palestinian West Bank.

(WASHINGTON DC) - US Secretary of State John Kerry very tentatively announced Friday that he has hopes that Israeli and Palestinian negotiations will start back up with a visit of both sides to Washington in the coming week.

Oddly, he made the announcement alone, not flanked by either Palestinians or Israelis, prompting questions of whether he really had a breakthrough or firm commitments.

Human Rights and Palestinian Choices

Stop the racist Prawer-Begin plan to ethnically cleanse Palestinians of the Negev...

(BETHLEHEM) - Mr. Abbas agreed to go back to public negotiations with a pathological liar (Netanyahu, see below). Private negotiations have been ongoing behind the scenes.

Public and private negotiations for the past 20 years produced nothing tangible except increasing the number of colonial Jewish settlers in the West Bank from 200,000 in 1992 to 650,000 today and subcontracting Israeli security to Palestinian security officials.

Are Palestinian Students in Lebanon Being Pressured to Choose Kalashnikovs Over College?

Outrageously, and in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and fundamental fairness, one of the very few “legal” jobs being allowed for Palestinians today in Lebanon, are as hired gunmen.

(BEIRUT) - Ein el Helwe Palestinian camp -- The choice for many Palestinian young men in Lebanon has come down to guns or education.

By force of Lebanese law and under threat of prison for violators, Palestinians are denied the elementary civil rights to work in more than 50 professions and are barred by a 2001 racist law from them or their families, more than six decades living as refugees in Lebanon, from even owning a home.

UK MP and Israel Critic David Ward is Suspended from Party

Israel lobby draws the ‘red lines’ and dictates ‘precise terms’ for future Liberal Democrat debate, apparently.

(LONDON) - Back in January the Liberal Democrat leadership threw a mighty wobbly when MP David Ward made this remark on his website:

"I am saddened that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust, could within a few years of liberation from the death camps be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel and continue to do so on a daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza."

A Shattered Dream

“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask for what you can do for your country.” John F. Kennedy.

(LA MANGA, Spain) - One of the most arduous tasks on earth now is being a Palestinian. No matter what direction we might look there is either a siege, a wall, an occupation, subjugation, deprivation and/or demonisation.

This hapless and hopeless position is born of many factors. The first is that the cause of the Palestinians was taken out of their hands from the moment that Zionist intentions in Palestine were made clear.

Livni Warns Israel It Faces A Worldwide Boycott

This is not what we expect to hear from an Israeli minister.

(CHICAGO) - Justice Minister Tzipi Livni is the Israeli cabinet minister with the task of finding a way back to peace talks. At the moment, she is one more frustrated negotiator.

Livni was so frustrated that she kicked off the month of July with a speech in which she said that if negotiations with the Palestinians don’t start up again soon, Israel will face a worldwide economic boycott.

EU Takes Tougher Stance on Israeli Settlements

'Earthquake' directive will prohibit EU states from signing deals with Israel unless settlement exclusion clause is included.

(JERUSALEM) - Future agreements between the European Union and Israel must include the explicit exclusion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank or East Jerusalem, according to a new EU directive described by an Israeli official as an "earthquake".

The EU guidelines, adopted on 30 June, will prohibit the issuing of grants, funding, prizes or scholarships unless a settlement exclusion clause is included.

Israel Lobby Tries (And Fails) to Intimidate Another UK MP

If there is such a thing as a Palestinian holocaust it is a slow motion one.

(LONDON) - The word 'holocaust' is centuries old and has several meanings, one being "any mass slaughter or reckless destruction of life". For those interested in the figures, Israel's B'Tselem shows that between year 2000 and the start of Israel’s ‘Cast Lead’ assault on Gaza in 2008 the Israelis’ vast standing army, equipped with the most advanced American-funded weaponry, killed 4,790 Palestinian civilians in their homeland.

Of these, 952 were children. Yes, 952 young Palestinian lives horribly snuffed out and their parents left desolated.